Taipei govt downplays Retrocession Day

By Lawrence Chung, The Straits Times, 26 October
2000

In previous years, the Kuomintang authorities
celebrated the event in grand style, but Taipei’s new regime has
opted to play down the occasion

TAIPEI—Taiwan yesterday marked the 55th anniversary of Taiwan
Retrocession Day—the return of the island to the Chinese fold
from Japanese colonisation—in a quiet way.

The event was downplayed by the five-month-old Chen Shui-bian
government, which had decided to drop all the grand-style festivities
previously organised by the old Kuomintang authorities.

Analysts said the quiet celebration was expected as the very idea of
Taiwan being taken back by China had long been rejected by President
Chen’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The sea of flags usually hung along boulevards in front of the
Presidential Office and other government buildings was missing.

Parties and concerts attended by celebrities, movie stars and singers
were absent. The 10-minute presidential message that used to be
broadcast by local television also vanished in the air.

President Chen made a speech in a small-scale celebration in Nantou,
central Taiwan, but there was no mention of the history of the
island’s return to the Chinese fold.

People went to work as usual as the day was not a public holiday. Most
were not even aware that it was Taiwan Retrocession Day. For those who
remembered the event, they assumed that it was a holiday.

I thought it was a holiday, said a Taipei taxi driver.

When told it was not, he then said there should not be the flying of
the island’s flags everywhere. He was not aware that, unlike
previously, the flags were not flying.

An office clerk said she could still remember vividly the sea of flags
flying everywhere in Taiwan all through October, when the former
government hosted a month-long celebration for several major events,
including the Double 10 celebration on Oct 10, the Taiwan Retrocession
Day on Oct 25 and the birthday anniversary of the late President
Chiang Kai-shek on Oct 31.

Professor Shao Tzung-hai of National Chengchi University said:
It’s natural for the new government to play down the event as
the DPP has maintained that Taiwan had become detached from China ever
since the then-Manchu government ceded the island to Japan in
1895.

To protest the downplaying of the event, the Chinese Reunification
Alliance organised a march in Taipei and asked the public to remember
the history of Japan’s return of the island to China in 1945.